Tag Archives: RV

This trip out West has been an enviable experience, but in all honesty, we have hit a slump.

The same swirling weather system that brought record-breaking tornadoes to Oklahoma and the Midwest in the last couple of weeks created dry but unusually robust winds along our travel route. Gusts have been as high as 35-50 miles per hour at the worst of it.

We made the turn north from Las Cruces, New Mexico, up toward the Four Corners and Santa Fe at about the time the storms began to brew.

Along I-26 not far from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the smaller awning on Herman’s side began to swing in and out, rolling itself back up more haphazardly with each bang against the coach. We pulled off the highway into the parking lot of a chile packing plant and braved flying dust as I held our flimsy aluminum stepladder and Herman climbed up to see what could be done. Nada. Zippy-dee-doo-dah. Continue reading →

Larry Blevins, owner of Larry’s Mobile RV and Marine Repair, wails on the sax with the 24/7 Blues Band.

Talk about serendipity. Storm clouds with silver linings. When we pulled into Las Cruces, New Mexico, a few stops ago, every single electrical outlet in the motorhome suddenly went on the fritz.

We were not, as the expression goes, happy campers. For that matter, we are not exactly campers. Without our Mr. Coffee, phone chargers, and hair dryer, we felt a little frantic and a lot bereft. Continue reading →

I am delighted—and surprised—to report that my husband, Herman, and I are still married and we have safely arrived in Biloxi, Mississippi, the first stay on our planned two-month motorhome trip West.

This is indeed good news, since to get here we had to drive through Atlanta.

I have a long, painful history with Atlanta traffic.

I once dissolved into hysterical tears after riding Interstate 75 in the red leather bucket passenger seat of my mother’s 1972 Chevrolet Camaro. Well, not in the bucket seat, exactly, but with my rear end braced two inches above it, both feet pressed tight against the floorboard and legs locked in a vain attempt to brake and slow down the car.

When I began to sob, my mother decelerated long enough to turn to me and say, “What in the world is wrong with you?” Then she hit the gas and roared up alongside another car whose female driver had cut her off a few minutes earlier—either in panic or self-defense.

Mother cranked down the driver’s side window. Manually. The Camaro didn’t have power-anything except a bucking bronco engine. She held onto the steering wheel with one hand (What? You need two?) stuck her head into the breeze and yelled at the offender, “You little vomit.”

Pulling herself back into the Camaro and gunning even harder, Mother passed on the right, doing at least 80.

When Herman and I came through The Big Peach this week, the traffic was more horrific than ever. The sky had already run out of cats and dogs to rain down on us and was hurling thunderbolts, huge splashing splats of water a bucket at a time, and a plague of frogs. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but only about the frogs.

After forcing us onto a route straight through the city center, the GPS had suddenly gone ambiguous. Even though four out of five lefthand lanes were lit on the display screen, the woman in the box exhorted us to keep right, keep right on I-85 ahead.

“Which way?” Herman cried.

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” I wailed. “It’s so confusing.”

“I don’t’ care,” Herman barked. “Make a decision. We’re a team. I’m driving and you have to make a decision.”

He must have been truly frantic because that’s the first time I’ve heard that. No matter where we go, he has the same standing joke about me and my backseat (or technically, shotgun) driving. Our rig is as long as a transfer truck and completely unwieldy: A forty-foot long one-lane wide motorhome. A car hitched to that, dragging behind. And two bicycles perched on a carrier on the back the car.

Every time people see our circus train, they ask me, “Do you drive it?”

I smile like Mona Lisa and turn to Herman.

“Oh yes,” he says. “We took a 6,000 mile trip a couple of years back and she drove all the way.” He pauses a beat. He has had a lot of practice with this particular routine and his timing is impeccable.

“Really?” his audience says, amazed.

I nod, conspiratorially.

“Oh yes. She drove every mile of the way,” Herman concludes, triumphantly. “I just held the steering wheel.”

Come to think of it, I guess we are a team, after all.

Did this make you laugh? Make you cry like a little girl in a souped-up Chevy? I’d love your comments and memories below. Want to follow our progress across the country? Use the form at the right to subscribe to the blog. Or click one of the buttons on the right to follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks for reading!